Elizabeth Taylor: 1912-1975

Elizabeth Taylor, who was born in Reading, Berkshire, in 1912 and educated at the Abbey School, Reading, worked as a governess and librarian before her marriage in 1936: ‘I learnt so much from these jobs,’ she wrote, ‘and have never regretted the time I spent at them.’ She lived in Penn, Buckinghamshire, for almost all her married life.

Her first novel, At Mrs Lippincote's, appeared in 1945 and was followed by eleven more, together with short stories which were published in various periodicals and collected in five volumes, and a children's book, Mossy Trotter.

Taylor's shrewd but affectionate portrayals of middle- and upper-middle-class English life soon won her a discriminating audience, as well as staunch friends in the world of letters. She died in 1975.

‘Elizabeth Taylor is finally being recognised as an important British author: an author of great subtlety, great compassion and great depth. As a reader, I have found huge pleasure in returning to Taylor’s novels and short stories many times over. As a writer I’ve returned to her too – in awe of her achievements, and trying to work out how she does it.’ Sarah Waters

‘One of the most underrated novelists of the twentieth century, Elizabeth Taylor writes with a wonderful precision and grace. Her world is totally absorbing.’ Antonia Fraser

‘Always intelligent, often subversive and never dull, Elizabeth Taylor is the thinking person's dangerous housewife. Her sophisticated prose combines elegance, icy wit and freshness in a stimulating cocktail – the perfect toast to the quiet horror of domestic life.’ Valerie Martin

‘A wonderful novelist.’ Jilly Cooper

‘Jane Austen, Elizabeth Taylor, Barbara Pym, Elizabeth Bowen – soul-sisters all.’ Anne Tyler

‘How deeply I envy any reader coming to her for the first time!’ Elizabeth Jane Howard

‘Her stories remain with one, indelibly, as though they had been some turning point in one’s own experience.’ Elizabeth Bowen

‘I envy those readers who are coming to her work for the first time. Theirs will be an unexpected pleasure, and they will – if they read her as she wanted to be read – learn much that will surprise them.’ Paul Bailey

'Sophisticated, sensitive and brilliantly amusing, with a kind of stripped, piercing feminine wit.' Rosamond Lehmann